Browsing category: Sunday Posts

Nehemiah built that wall.
Did that kinda make you laugh? I really hope so.
Ok, sorry. Let's get on to the story of Nehemiah. Let's get serious here. No more jokes. I promise.
Let's review.
Our last verse took us up to the point in Israel's history when Cyrus, king of Persia had overthrown the Babylonian empire and began to allow the exiled Jews to return to Jerusalem after 70 years of captivity. In Ezra 3:11, we memorized the words that spoke of the people's worship when the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.

Have you ever been homesick?
I remember when I was first old enough to spend the night away from home. I packed a bag with my favorite jammies, tucked in my toothbrush and couldn't wait for my mom to pull the car into the driveway at my friend's house.
It was all kinds of fun until the sun went down and it got dark outside. Then my stomach started feeling a little queasy, and I wondered what my mom and brother were doing at home.
When the book of Ezra opens, it was 538 B.C., and God's people were plenty homesick. For 70 years,

7 Practical Ways to Honor Your Parents
Smack-dab in the middle of the Ten Commandments are these very direct words from God concerning our parents.
Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving to you. Exodus 20:12
All the commandments are important, but this is the only one with a promise attached to it. That's so interesting, isn't it?
God tells us to keep the Sabbath holy, keep ourselves faithful in marriage, worship no other, speak truth, use his name

As Kynzie (my granddaughter) and I approach the 29th verse on our quest to memorize one verse from each book of the Bible, we sense the momentum that has built along the way.
By now, we've clearly heard and understood, verse by verse by verse, God's plan and God's heart for his people.
He has continually assured them of his plans for their lives, his principles of discipline for their own good, and his passion for keeping them as his own.
In what feels like our final lap around the Old Testament, we are memorizing verses from

Note: This post provides the backdrop for #28 in the list of 66 faith-filled Bible verses my granddaughter and I are memorizing together. We started at Genesis 1:1, and we're working our way through the whole Bible, one verse from each book.

And he did.
Hosea married a cheater.
Not the kind who didn't keep her eyes on her own paper, either.
At the beginning of Hosea's career as a prophet, he married a woman who had an unappealing name and a reputation that was even worse.
Described as adulterous,

(Note: This is number three in my 3-part travel series chronicling our family trip to Washington, D.C. If you missed out on the previous posts, here's Day One and Day Two.)
This is the post I wasn't sure I would have the courage to write.
(At the entrance to a presidential exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of American History.)
At no time in my life have I considered myself a deep thinker.
I took government in high school and philosophy in college. I understand the basics of our checks-and-balances structure, and

Kynzie and I have made it to our first big milestone on our scripture memory journey! We’ve now memorized 25 verses together!!! Woo-hoo!!!
It has taken time, but not that much. It's taken effort, but it's surprisingly not that overwhelming. It's been hard, but not impossible. We may not make our goal of 66 by the end of the year, but, hey, we've already gotten to #25!
Do you know what’s been the hardest part? It’s not remembering the book of the Bible where the verse is found. It’s not the succession of the words in the

Being a parent is the hardest job. Unless you're a stepparent. That's even harder.
Raising your own children from diapers to dating is super hard. Raising someone else's children - from 8-18 should be easier, right? The baby years have already been toughed out by someone else. Kids are resilient. Look how well they get along with their friends. This blended family thing can't be all that hard, thinks every soon-to-be-stepparent everywhere.
Oh, yes, it can.
Today is Father's Day, and if you're a stepdad, you deserve not only

My granddaughter and I are memorizing 66 verses together, one from each book of the Bible. It started out as a lofty goal on my part, as I over-enthusiastically planned for us to be finished in one year's time. Well, it's going to take us longer than I thought, but it's proving to be time well spent.
Verse #17 is one of our favorites so far. It's about a brave young Jewish woman named Esther who was exiled with her people in the Persian empire under the rule of King Xerxes. One day, Esther's life takes a very unexpected

#13 - I Chronicles 29:11
Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and in earth is yours.
Aside from the thrill of listening to Kynzie's voice as she recites the verses we're memorizing together, I also love the creativity with which she approaches the task.
Hand motions have been an effective memorization tool for some of our previous verses, but for this one, we needed to try something a little different. The five attributes of